Developing a Hand Papermaking Cottage Industry in the Greater Ashanti Region of Ghana: A convergence of craft, art, and environmental conservation

Abstract

Mr. Michael Adashie, MFA and PhD candidate from the Department of Painting and Sculpture at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and I are working to create a model cottage industry hand paper mill, with the intention of producing a strong, beautiful paper, unique to Ghana, with the physical qualities to make it appropriate for use by professional printmakers and other artists. The long-tern intention of this project is also to support local farmers interested in using free, abundant materials to produce these papers for sale, and to assist in a larger initiative that is focused on containing the growth of an invasive plant. This project has drawn together the university art community, the Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, and local subsistence farmers. This presentation is the story of the first part of this project.

I am a practicing artist/craftsman, as well as a member of the Design Studies faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My studio work is twofold - I work as a production papermaker, designing and making small editions of high quality flax and linen papers for fine press books and unique papers commissioned for special artists projects. I also create one of a kind artworks: constructed paintings made of heavily worked paper and fabric, which I exhibit. I
am a studio artist with a practice that draws heavily on textile traditions and processes. In 2006, supported by a Fulbright Senior Research Grant, I lived and worked in Kumasi, Ghana for one year with the intention of studying the vibrant and historic cloth traditions. During this year of research and studio production I studied the Adinkra cloth making tradition in the small village of Ntonso, sat with cloth vendors in open air markets, made friends with seamstresses, and moved about in a place where cloth is fully appreciated; a place where color and pattern are an integral part of life. I lived and worked in this place where making things by hand is understood and practiced to some degree by many, many families.

Kumasi, Ghana is in the center of the Greater Ashanti Region. The Ashanti culture has an historic and lively entrepreneurial arts and crafts scene. Weaving, dying, basketry, printing, painting, sewing, woodcarving, bronze casting and other activities are very much part of an active local market place. All of this activity is produced in family workshops. Having spent a year living with an Adinkra cloth-making family, in a village where virtually every family was
also involved in this production, I have seen first hand how the family enterprise is a strong and elemental part of the rural economy. People here understand and value craft activity; and these items are valued for their ascetics as well as their usefulness.

Beyond these master weavers, cloth-makers, carvers and so on, the role of making in this part of the world is understood as the most economical way to get the items one needs for daily living. While money is tight, time is available. Shoemakers, key cutters, woodworkers, sign painters, tin- smiths, seamstresses, and many others provide the necessary goods and services households use everyday. This is a place where making things is deeply embedded in ordinary life.
During 2006 I was also invited by the Department of Painting and Sculpture at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi to conduct a workshop in hand papermaking for fine arts students. Teaming up with Mr. Michael Adashie, lecturer in printmaking, and forty, third-year undergraduate art students we set out to make a paper from indigenous material that would be strong, beautiful and have an aesthetic particular to this area. For six weeks, with just a few basic tools that were shared among all the students, we focused on botanicals found on or near the K.N.U.S.T. campus. We wanted a to develop a handmade paper with the integrity appropriate for use by professional printmakers, bookbinders, sculptors and others, and that also had an attitude that was unique to this place.